Month: May 2014

Intel Corp.’s plant in Rio Rancho has been passed over again for next-generation nanometer chip technology, but the plant is still an integral part of the company’s global production chain, New Mexico site manager Kirby Jefferson told the Albuquerque Economic Forum on Wednesday morning.

“This site was not selected for the 10 nanometer chips, that’s for certain,” Kirby said. “They will do it at other facilities. Seven nanometer is the next one, and we still don’t know where that will be.”

This is the third time New Mexico has been passed over for next-generation chip technology. The Rio Rancho site currently produces 32-nanometer chips, following a $2.5 billion investment in 2009 to upgrade the plant from 45-nanometer technology.

Now, being three cycles behind the curve makes it more difficult to compete for next-generation chips.

“The investment would have to be extremely high here, because we’re so far behind,” Kirby said.

The New Mexico Intel site hasn’t had the latest upgrades in 3 generations and the longer it goes without getting those upgrades the harder it is to get future upgrades. It seems to spell doom for the Intel New Mexico site.

“The New Mexico plant is front and center with what’s going on at Intel,” he said. “Intel is committed to this community. The thinking all the way up the chain is to keep this operation going.”

Call me skeptical. If I was a highly skilled worker at this site I would certainly see doom and gloom and I would be shopping my skills elsewhere, further adding to the decline of the site. If I recall correctly, when Intel was producing the Sandy Bridge processor the Intel New Mexico site was supposedly providing the majority of income to the whole Intel corporation buy producing the majority of those chips while the other sites were ramping up Haswell.

It feels as if the Intel management has kick the Intel New Mexico site to the curb.

The Fox TV show Hieroglyph is filming in New Mexico and will be airing in the fall of 2014. I was able to tour the set at Q Studios and its obvious that Fox put a lot of money into the show. Hoepfully the show is as good as the money they are putting into it. The trailer can ben seen on YouTube.

The world of ancient Egypt — a time of magic, Pharaohs, gods and thieves — lives again in HIEROGLYPH, an exciting action-adventure series from creator/executive producer Travis Beacham (“Pacific Rim,” “Clash of the Titans”). When a dangerous scroll, The Book of Thresholds, is stolen from Egypt’s most secure vault, master thief AMBROSE (Max Brown, “Beauty and the Beast,” “MI-5”) is plucked from prison to track down the perpetrator. Having spent the past five years in the darkest of pits, Ambrose quickly learns that his prison cell might be safer than the dangerous new world in which he finds himself: Atum, the empire’s capital. Ambrose must answer to Pharaoh SHAI KANAKHT (Reece Ritchie, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”), a god in the flesh, a young ruler with a cool charm and a violent, frightening temper. The question for Ambrose is not whether he can trust his new boss, but whether he can trust anyone. Also stalking the halls of the palace is NEFERTARI KANAKHT (Condola Rashad, “Smash,” “Steel Magnolias”), half-sister to the Pharaoh, whose relationship with Shai’s closest advisor, MAGISTER BEK (guest star Hal Ozsan, “90210”), masks her own designs for power. Finding few leads in the palace, Ambrose’s investigation takes him to the doorstep of his long-lost love, PESHET (Caroline Ford, “Lake Placid: The Final Chapter”), a magic-wielding adoratrice, a type of homespun priestess who uses her femininity as a portal to the gods…for the right price. Peshet was the keystone in Ambrose’s merry band of thieves, an impressionable youth with great knowledge of magic, a woman who never saw a lock for which she didn’t have an unlocking charm. Five years later, Peshet has left her old life behind in a pious pursuit of divine contact. Ambrose’s journey also leads him to old friends, such as VOCIFER (John Rhys-Davies, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark”), a peddler of mystical wares and Ambrose’s mentor. But he also comes face-to-face with foes both old and new, from RAWSER (Antony Bunsee, “EastEnders,” “Sex and the City 2”), the Pharaoh’s captain of the guard, who imprisoned him five years ago; to LOTUS TENRY (Kelsey Chow, “One Tree Hill”), a palace concubine and spy for a rival kingdom. As Ambrose unravels the mystery of The Book of Thresholds, he begins to see the extent to which sorcery has seeped into the halls of power in ancient Egypt, and how close it is to causing this great civilization’s downfall. HIEROGLYPH is produced by Chernin Entertainment in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The series is created and written by Travis Beacham. The series is executive-produced by Beacham, Peter Chernin (NEW GIRL, “Touch”), Katherine Pope (NEW GIRL, “Touch”) and Anna Fricke (“Being Human,” “Men in Trees”). Miguel Sapochnik (“Mind Games,” “Repo Men”) also serves as an executive producer and directed the pilot.